Quick Take
Last week, Santa Cruz Metro received another round of funding, this time for its South County project aiming to revamp the Watsonville Transit Center and build 65 units of affordable housing above it. In the Santa Cruz Mountains, Highway 9 repairs continue nearly a year after the storms at the beginning of 2023.
As with Pacific Stations North and South in downtown Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz Metro has been pushing forward on a project in Watsonville with the same goal of linking affordable housing to an improved Metro service.
It similarly involves revamping Metro’s Watsonville Transit Center into an updated transit hub along with 65 units of affordable housing. Last Thursday, Metro secured $2 million for the project from the Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments (AMBAG).
As it currently stands, the plan is to construct a four-story building with a Metro lobby and ticketing office on the bottom floor, and the affordable housing units across the top three floors. Metro CEO Michael Tree told Lookout earlier this year that Metro has partnered with the affordable housing developer MidPen Housing.
“That building is in disrepair and needs to be redeveloped,” he said in May. “We’re also looking into some community services for the bottom floor.”
To best use the development, Metro is also planning to add two bus routes between the new Watsonville Transit Center and Santa Cruz, to run every 15 minutes.
With the recent AMBAG funding, Metro is able to cover the architecture and engineering phase of the project, which is expected to begin in January and last until December 2025. At that point, the hope is that the project will be ready to break ground.
Highway 9 repairs continue
Meanwhile, Highway 9 work continues nearly a year after the road was marred by multiple slides between New Year’s Eve 2022 and the first few weeks of 2023. While various segments of the winding mountain road between Henry Cowell Redwoods Vista Point and Glengarry Road remain open to alternating one-way traffic only, some storm repairs have still yet to begin.
Yet another segment of Highway 9 between the northeast side of Big Basin Redwoods State Park and the west side of Castle Rock State Park will be partially closed starting in the spring to address damaged sections of the road, though a specific date has not been determined yet. Caltrans District 5 spokesperson Kevin Drabinski said the agency is nearing completion of the repair design.
With any luck, Highway 9 will escape any further damage this winter.
Latest news
Check out our Carmageddon road delay list here. This week, pay particular attention to:
Landscaping work on a median between Freedom Boulevard and Holm Road in Watsonville will shut down one lane of traffic and the median along Highway 152 on Tuesday and Wednesday. An alternating lane of one-way traffic will allow cars heading both west and east to continue on their typical routes.
Restriping along Highway 9 continues this week, and will close down one lane of traffic at various segments from San Lorenzo Avenue in Felton to the intersection of Highway 1. The closure will last from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. Tuesday through Thursday, and one alternating lane of traffic will be open while the work is ongoing.
The Pure Water Soquel work to install an architectural cover for the piping along the Laurel Street bridge will continue this week between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday. It will shut down one westbound lane of Laurel.
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